Great Falls Tribune from Great Falls, Montana • U2

2 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2021 GREAT FALLS TRIBUNE GLOBAL GUARDIAN The GLOBAL Guardian is a Great Falls Tribune publication. It is published by a private firm in no way connected to the U.S. Air Force. Contents of this newspa- per are not necessarily the official views of, or endorsed by, the U.S. govern- ment, the Department of Defense or the Department of the Air Force.

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To place a retail ad, call 791-6578. For questions concerning distribution, please call 791-6500. ABOUT THE GUARDIAN Great Falls City Commissioner Rick Tryon gave some startling statistics about crime in Great Falls during the Jan. 28 commission strategic planning session. He quoted and areavi- bes.com as his sources, but a deeper dive into those websites reveals that their information is inaccurate and some of its sourcing is suspect.

says it gets its infor- mation from variety of government and private and warns, data.com does not guarantee the accu- racy or timeliness of any information on this site. Use at your own Areavibes.com lists the FBI as its source, but the numbers in its crime breakdown for Great Falls are vastly dif- ferent than those listed on the cial website. The biggest inconsisten- cies were in burglary and property crimes. Areavibes.com reported property crime arrests at three times those re- ported by the FBI, and its number of burglaries was seven times too high. The website under-reported assaults by 266.

The in numbers bring up questions. How reliable is the data cials use? How much should they rely on it to drive their decision-making? And do these have a respon- sibility to the public to present the most accurate information available? In an interview Tuesday, Tryon said he was pre- senting the information from areavibes- and the like because they appear in search engine results when potential newcomers are looking to learn about Great Falls. people are not going to go to the GFPD (Great Falls Police Depart- ment) website, and not going to go to necessarily the FBI Tryon said. going to go is the typical websites that you would go to information about cities and However, the information Tryon pre- sented was, in part, used to inform the creation of a panel to address crime in Great Falls. In the Jan.

28 meeting, Tryon opened his dialogue about this topic talking about the story being told about Great Falls. want that story to be a positive Tryon said. However, in an inter- view Tryon denied that this is a public relations issue. Tryon said that areavibes.com listed the FBI as a source. However, Tryon declined to acknowl- edge that the statistics match the FBI database.

And when asked if he thought if the information he cited was accurate, Tryon dismissed the question. Just hours after the Tribune inter- viewed Tryon, he took to the Facebook Great Falls Neighborhood Watch group. expected, there are some folks who do not like the fact that I have pub- licly raised the issue of Great Falls hav- ing a serious crime he said. is going to be a coordinated to once again sweep the issue under the rug and try to convince the public not as bad as it is. usual suspects in the local mainstream media will be among those pushing the not that agenda.

not going to fall for it this The numbers According to U.S. News and World Report, Montana ranks 29th in the na- tion for crime. All of the following is according to FBI arrest data for arrests. It does not ac- count for charges that were dismissed or charges that were added to the case after the initial arrest. Great arrests per capita are cer- tainly high: more than twice the nation- al number and higher than Mon- Areas where Great arrests far outstrip the national average are crimes against the person, as- saults, and property crime.

When compared against similarly- sized cities in the region, Great numbers are comparatively lower. Great per-capita arrest rate is 5,251 in 100,000. Rapid City, S.D.’s is 9,809, and Cheyenne, Wyoming, comes in at 7,023. For Montana cities closest to Great Falls in population, Missoula has a 4,225 per-capita arrest rate, and Boze- is 3,019. Great Falls crime numbers questioned alcohol and said Cascade County Attorney Josh Racki about underlying causes of crime in Great Falls.

do I have a crime of any kind that involve that on some PHOTOS BY RION FALLS TRIBUNE Traci Rosenbaum and Nicole Girten Great Falls Tribune USA TODAY NETWORK See CRIME, Page 3.